Friday, February 10, 2012

The CEO As Leader

Politics in America

There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else. —Andrew Carnegie

One of the current political articles of faith in American politics is that a person who runs a corporation is best suited to run a nation, since the characteristics of a CEO are ideally suited for those of a political leader. The working idea behind this thought is that a nation ought to run like a business. That idea is often closely associated with conservative
parties, since this has always been the party of the wealthy.
Conservatives, true to their nature, want to conserve wealth and keep it
in the least hands as possible—the top 1%, or even better the top 0.1%. It's an exclusive club.

This idea of business leader turned political leader has become such a matter of faith that even the middle-class and the poor have bought in to this piece of political religion, voting against their best interests. This belief needs more scrutiny. Who benefits the most from having someone in office who has elite business connections? And which group would such a person, once in higher office, richly reward? Not the poor and middle class whose votes were necessary to vote him into office.

The essential argument is that a nation is very much unlike a business. The capabilities a CEO
brings to a business is often unsuitable for the office of the
president, acting as a leader to a diverse nation. Paul Krugman, a
distinguished if not opinionated economist, hits the nail square on the
head in a piece, "America Isn't a Corporation," in The New York Times:

But there’s a deeper problem in the whole notion that what this nation
needs is a successful businessman as president: America is not, in fact,
a corporation. Making good economic policy isn’t at all like maximizing
corporate profits. And businessmen — even great businessmen — do not,
in general, have any special insights into what it takes to achieve
economic recovery.

Why isn’t a national economy like a corporation? For one thing, there’s
no simple bottom line. For another, the economy is vastly more complex
than even the largest private company.

Precisely.
And this applies to my country, Canada, which as of late "believes as a
matter of faith," that CEOs make good political leaders. CEOs are no
better or worse than other professions, including lawyers, engineers or
career politicians, in being a leader of a nation. The chief question
the electorate needs to ask is whether the candidate has earned the
trust of the people for higher office. Money and social status should
never be chief deciding factors.

Let's look at the
United States, which is facing a domestic crisis. Today, when the
underemployment rate remains stubbornly unsustainable at over 15%, with 23 million persons underemployed; and the number of persons in poverty exceeds 46 million,
that would mean doing something big to give people dignity and hope. If
the candidates running for the leadership of the Republican Party
haven't noticed, people in America have lost hope and are dispirited.

The election will likely became an election focused on the economy and the current inequalities built-in to the current model or form of capitalism. This is suggested in a recent article in The New York Times, "Obama and Romney Face Tough a Fight for Key Group," which shows what's important to Americans:

Truly, the last thing America needs is a CEO as president, whose strength it seems is slashing jobs to maximize shareholder value, and again reward the privileged few. The key word and the chief priority ought to be the Economy: Jobs, jobs and jobs. Focusing on such a priority would take a courageous leader who understand the average Joe or Jill. Perhaps President Obama will awaken from his slumber and make that the focus, the center-piece so to speak, of his election campaign. (Republicans historically have had other interests.)

The U.S. presidential election this November 6 is probably the most important since 1980. It will decide the direction that this nation takes, whether it continues on this path of deepening inequalities or reverses course to once again make America the land of opportunity for all. I despair for the former and hope for the latter. Yes, I know, I am living in Dreamland, not steeped in political reality.

There is a nice expression in Yiddish that characterizes such people: Du bist ein luftmensch.

Something to laugh about:Ronald and Nancy Reagan went to a restaurant. The waiter approached to take their order.Nancy: I'll have roast lamb and a baked potato.Waiter: And the vegetable?Nancy: He'll have the same.

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Yiddish Sites (listed since August 2017)

There are dozens of sites dedicated to Yiddish language, culture and music. Here are some that I have found noteworthy. I will add to the list regularly. If you have a Yiddish site or know of one, please do not hesitate to contact me atpjgreenbaum@gmail.com:

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Afn Shvel(“On the Threshold”), a magazine published by the League for Yiddish, dating to 1941, it is committed to the promotion and preservation of the Yiddish language and culture. It published two double issues a year. Its editor-in-chief is Sheva Zucker;

American Jewish Archive at Hebrew Union College’s Jewish Institute of Religion contains more than 10 million pages of documents. manuscripts, genealogical materials, as well as thousands of audiovisual recordings, photographs, microfilm and digital collections;

Center for Jewish History, in New York City, has 5 miles of archival material (in dozens of languages), more than 500,000 volumes, as well asthousands of artworks, textiles, ritual objects, recordings and photographs;

JewishGen Yizkor Book Project, a database of more than 1,000 yizkor books worldwide, a good number of them have been translated from Hebrew and Yiddish into English;

Language and Cultural Atlas of Ashkenazic Jews,from Columbia University,consists of 5,755 hours of audio tape interviews with Yiddish-speaking Jews from Central and eastern Europe, done between 1959 and 1972 along with around 100,000 pages of linguistic field notes;

Lexilogos, a compilation of Yiddish online resources, including dictionaries, grammar books, and a translation of the Torah (Toyre) in Yiddish;

Milken Archive of Jewish Music, a record of the American Jewish Experience; since 1990, it has become the largest collection of American Jewish music with about 600 recorded works, including a number in Yiddish;

Museum of the Yiddish Theatre, an online museum originating in New York City and founded by Dr. Steven Lasky, has in its collection such items as photographs, theatre programs, sheet music, audio recordings and other documents of some importance and historical significance;

Pakn Treger, (“itinerant bookseller in Eastern Europe who traveled from shtetl to shtetl ”), the magazine of the Yiddish Book Centre;

Recorded Sound Archives (RSA) of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton contains more than 100,000 recordings of music, a great many in Yiddish;

Songs of My People, a site by Josephine Yalovitser dedicated to Yiddish songs of mourning and of joy;

The National Center For Jewish Film, based at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., is the home to 15,000 reels of feature films, documentaries, newsreels, home movies and institutional films, dating from 1903 to the present; this effort has led to the revival of Yiddish cinema;

Yizkor Book Collection at the New York Public Library provide a documentation of daily life, through essays and photographs and the memoralizing of murdered residents, of Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust. Of the 750 yizkor books in its collection, 618 have been digitalized. Most yizkor books are in Yiddish or Hebrew;

YUNG YiDiSH, a site dedicated to preserving and promoting Yiddish culture in Israel;